Pronunciation: an acquired skill

Pronunciation: an acquired skill

Two points by way of conclusion.

Firstly, the structures described above are universal in humans: whatever the race or speech-community, the speech organs are the same. There are of course differences in the size and even precise shape of particular parts of the vocal tract, but differences between individuals in a given speech-community are greater than the average differences between one community and another.

It follows from this that the pronunciation difficulties experienced by people learning a foreign language are due to psychological factors, not to anatomical ones. After the age of 10 or so, most people find it difficult to break away from their native sound system. So someone who finds French r, German ü or Spanish j troublesome doesn’t have anything wrong with their uvula, tongue or velum (or at least this is highly unlikely): it’s just that their brain is finding it hard to adapt to new articulatory habits. A person’s knowledge of his or her mother tongue is in no way congenital. Had you been kidnapped at the age of six months and brought up in France, Germany or Spain - or China or the Amazon Basin for that matter - you’d be speaking the local language in a totally “native-like” manner ... and no doubt having problems with English. 

Humans have a complex system of using sounds to produce language. The study of linguistic sounds is

called Phonetics. Phonology is the study of systems of sounds, often the sound system of a particular

language.

Phonetics

Linguistic sounds are produced by pushing air from the lungs out through the mouth, sometimes by way

of the nasal cavity. The movement of the air can then be manipulated by the anatomy of the mouth and

throat to produce different sounds. In actual writing, the same sound may often be spelt different ways.

Consonants

Consonants are produced by restricting and then releasing the flow of air in three ways: vibrating the

vocal cords, changing the part of the anatomy which restricts the air flow, and changing the extent to

which the air flow is restricted. Consonants with relatively little vibration of the vocal cords are called

voiceless consonants. Consonants with relatively more vibration of the vocal cords are called voiced.

Consonants fall into the following categories, depending on what part of the anatomy is used to restrict

the air flow:

Labial                Air flow is restricted with the lips.

Dental                Air flow is restricted with the teeth.

Labiodental        Air flow is restricted with the top teeth on the bottom lip (if both lips are used the sound

                          is called bilabial).

Alveolar         Air flow is restricted by placing the tongue on the hard plate (alveolum) behind the top

                      front teeth.

Palatal           Air flow is restricted by placing the tongue on the soft palate behind the alveolum.

Velar             Air flow is restricted by placing the tongue far back in the mouth.

Glottal           Air flow is restricted by tightening the folds in the vocal cords (glottis).

Consonants can also be categorised by the extent to which the air flow is restricted:

Stop               Air flow is stopped and released quickly.

Fricative         Air flow is released gradually.

Affricate         Air flow is stopped and released gradually.

Nasal             Air flow is channeled through the nasal cavity.

Liquid             Air flow is channeled around the sides of the tongue.

Glide              Air flow is only partially restricted (these sounds are often called semi-vowels).

Some languages have other categories, but only the ones above are the only ones that occur in English.

Individual consonants can be made up of nearly any combination of the features above. For instance, [b]

is a voiced labial stop and /s/ is a voiceless alveolar fricative.

Vowels

Vowels are produced by directing the flow of air into different parts of the mouth. They can be adjusted

by changing the position of the tongue, by rounding of the lips, and by the degree of opening of the

mouth. All vowels are voiced.

The position of the tongue can be described in terms of how far forward the tongue is and how high it is.

Vowels are categorised as follows, depending on the position of the tongue:

Front         The tongue is in the front of the mouth.

Central       The tongue is further back in the mouth.

Back          The tongue is in the back of the mouth.

High           The tongue is high in the mouth.

Mid            The tongue is lower in the mouth

Low            The tongue is low in the mouth.

All vowels can be described in terms of their location on both vertical and horizontal axes. A look at the

Spanish vowel system demonstrates this. Examine the underlined vowels and the descriptions of them

below:

Niño “boy” High Front Vowel Burro “donkey” High Back Vowel

Jose Mid Front Vowel Jose Mid Back Vowel

Mar “sea” Low Central Vowel

If you pronounce the High and Mid Back Vowels, you will find that you round your lips. These are called rounded vowels.